I shall not go quietly into that great good night.

Well at least if they are going to fuck me over, they are going to pay for it up front first.

Sitting in the lounge here at Stuttgart airport, enjoy a quiet cup of coffee and preparing to board a flight to Istanbul and then onward to points elsewhere. Great thing about going through Istanbul is the Star Alliance lounge there. I planned a three hour layover so I can stuff my self on their free food and beer. Its an huge spread of kabob, pasta, and soups and salads. And beer. Did I mention beer? After all, if what is left of my so called “career” is going into hibernation, one ought to damn well fatten up for it. 😉

This will be the second of four trips in about as many weeks. My kind of month. Problem is-with the current lunacy that passes for governance these days-its feast or famine, and when I get back the long travel drought will begin. Its even going to be touch and go as to whether I maintain my elite status this year-something that pisses me off to no end.

C’est le guerre.

On the way over to shopping mall, I flew on Lufthansa, which actually was not too bad. If you have to be trapped in economy, its always better to be so on a recognized foreign flag carrier than an American one. As I was nursing my post-dinner Warsteiner, I happened to stumble on this movie in the entertainment queue: the English title is Chorus of Angels. Its a recent Japanese movie having come out just last year. The Japanese title is Kita no canaria tachi. ( Canaries of the North). Don’t know why they did not translate the title exactly since it is more appropriate to the subject of the film.

 

The movie is set in a village on an island that is just north of Hokkaido-one of several that are around the Northernmost Island of the Japanese Islands. It’s a small village with a small school. The main actress, now living in Tokyo and retired ( I cannot remember her name) is visited by the Tokyo police. The suspect is one of her former students. The boy as a student had been unruly and the teacher had made contact with him through songs-and the group got really good. The teacher revisits the island to find out what has happened to each of her six students from 20 years ago.

The movie’s plot is a little off kilter-but it provides an interesting venue for telling the story. Over about 90 minutes it unfolds the story of each of the students and of the teacher and the events that drove them together and eventually apart. The movie was fascinating for me -and it was a great chance to hear the language I miss so dearly, and I was happy I could understand most of it, without the subtitles to help. The movie is very interesting once you accept the plot improbabilities-but it is also very sad. I found my self tearing up near the end. My next door neighbor in the adjoining seat probably thought I was crazy. But it was a movie that tugged on your heartstrings.

Here is a trailer from the movie (sorry about the lack of subtitles):

 

Its worth the time if you can find it in English-or Japanese for that matter. I liked it.

Time board the plane. Onward!